Germany's Union Investment Real Estate has confirmed it has put a multi-country office portfolio on the market to take advantage of the current strong demand for European property.
Germany's Union Investment Real Estate has confirmed it has put a multi-country office portfolio on the market to take advantage of the current strong demand for European property.
Market sources put the value of the portfolio, known as Aqua, at between €900 mln and €1 bn. It consists of 17 office properties held by various Union retail and institutional funds and includes assets in the cities of London, Paris, Vienna, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Munich and Rotterdam.
The assets provide a total of 278,000 m2 and generate around €60 mln in annual rents.
'The portfolio consists of assets which Union Investment would have divested in single transactions over the short- to mid-term… mainly for portfolio strategic reasons,' a Union spokesman said.
He noted that the current market environment offers good opportunities to bundle single assets into a portfolio and thus appeal to other investor groups. In 2014, Union sold assets worth around €750 mln in 19 single deals, compared with average annual disposals of €1 bn.
The deal would mark one of the first multi-country portfolio deals in Europe since the crisis and is likely to appeal to US investors looking to build a platform on the continent. It follows a similar transaction by NorthStar in late 2014, when the US REIT made its European debut with the purchase for around €1.1 bn of a 186,000 m2 European package from asset manager SEB Immobiliën. The company followed this up in January with the acquisition of the Trias portfolio from German insurance company Provinzial NordWest for €500 mln.
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